The number of bones in the lingers and tentacula of the Briarean Pentacrinite amounts at least to a hundred thousand; if to these we add fifty thousand more for the ossicula of the side-arms, which is much too little, the total number of bones will exceed a hundred and fifty thousand. As each bone was furnished with at least two fasciculi of fibres, one for contraction, the other for expansion, we have a hundred and fifty thousand bones, and three hundred thousand fasciculi of fibres equivalent to muscles, in the body of a single Pentacrinite—an amount of muscular apparatus concerned in regulating the ossicula of the skeleton, infinitely exceeding any that has been yet observed throughout the entire animal creation.[1]
When we consider the profusion of care, and exquisite contrivance, that pervades the frame of every individual in this species of Pentacrinite, forming but one of many members, of the almost extinct family of Crinoïdeans—and when we add to this the amount of analogous mechanisms that characterize the other genera and species of this curious family,—we are almost lost in astonishment, at the microscopic attention that has been paid to the welfare of creatures, holding so low a place among the inhabitants of the ancient deep;[2] and we feel a no less irresistible conviction of the universal presence and eternal agency of Creative care, in the lower regions of organic life, than is forced upon us by the contemplation of those highest combinations of animal mechanism, which occur in that paragon of animal organization, the corporeal frame of Man.
- ↑ Tiedemann, in monograph on Holothuria, Echini, and Asterix, states that the common Star-fish has more than three thousand little bones.
- ↑ A frequent repetition of the same parts is proof of the low place and comparative imperfection of the animal in which it occurs. The number of bones in the human body is but two hundred and forty-one, and that of the muscles two hundred and thirty-two pairs. South's Dissector's Manual.
